97 660 986 seconds or less
by Renart
Summary: Ianto catches up his own brand of immortality. Questionable fix-it for COE. Warning: suicide, incest, interspecific sex, etc are mentioned.


Summary: Ianto catches up his own brand of immortality. Questionable fix-it for COE.

Disclaimer: "waving psychic paper around* see?

Pairing: Ianto/universe, so the main one is Ianto/Jack

Warnings: suicide, incest, interspecific sex, drugs etc. – all just in passing

Crack? Dark humour? Angst?

A/N: I think this is my reaction on various COE fix-it regarding Ianto, especially the badly executed ones. My one and only goal was for you to wish for his death by the end of it. Tell me if I succeeded. Plus was partly inspired by Stephy-Lou Clark-Weasley "Try Again", check it on my fav list.

On the side note: "snake-like object located about 11,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius" and it kinda looks like on of these Cracks in the skin of the Universe from last season of DW. LOL.

**97 660 986 seconds or less**

It happens like this – one minute he is dying – the next he is alive, Jack is lying atop of him and there is unconscious pterodactyl to his left.

It **always** happens like this.

Which is annoying for a number of reasons: Jack is bloody heavy, novelty of being so to say under Jack is long lost along the way and in the end – he supposes - it means that someone on some metaphorical plane of existence is holding _Welcome Back_ banner and laughing his questionable wits off.

The first time is a shock, naturally. So he starts it with spilling the beans to Jack. On reflection, Ianto frankly shouldn't have been that surprised that Jack locked him up in a Flat Holm. This misunderstanding is cleared up two weeks later after Ianto is done reciting what he knows of various Jack secrets: Doctor, Gray and Alice are the biggest one of course. But it's nightmares that convinces Jack in the end – fairies and 456 and Daleks. Next few years are awkward, for both of them. It becomes somewhat less awkward after Jack returns. Somewhere in between Martha Jones resurrection and Gwen death by Grey hand it all settles down and becomes as normal as it can be in Torchwood Cardiff. When 456 comes Torchwood is ready, but Ianto doesn't get to see how it all ends. He bleeds out on pavement beaten by rogue weevil and wonders if that is why he was given second chance, to make sure that Torchwood will be safe.

The breath after his last breath is met with leering Jack smile and Ianto starts to suspect that something fishy is going on. But than again second chances are not such a bad idea and if it means that Gwen is alive he could do it one more time. He has sex with Jack, overdoses Lisa with soporific and takes care of Torchwood as good as he can. Knowledge of two previous timelines doesn't save him from freezing to death in the middle of Himalayas and he swears while a life is slowly seeping out of him that given second chance he will find out what's wrong exactly with Harold Saxon.

A year later he knows exactly what's wrong with Harold Saxon, but that's hardly comforting considering that Earth is overrun by crazy alien supervillain with god complex. At least he dies in good company, of course he doesn't tell Martha Jones so, mostly because she is already dead by then. He doesn't talk to corpses per usual, unless it's Jack corpse of course, but that's another matter altogether.

Back to square one again. It's his fifth life and he travels with the Doctor and Martha Jones. He lives through the year that never was and walks out of it with horrible realization that it always happened before. He doesn't return to Torchwood, neither does Jack. He dies on alien planet on the other side of the universe half a million years before he was born saving the Doctor. It's a good finishing stroke if anything, certainly beats dying from alien virus or being gnawed to death by weevil.

It is damned warehouse – again. He doesn't know what to do. Is there some problem to be solved or wrong to be righted, mistake to be correct, people to be saved? There are no voices or angels or talking animals. Well there is, but for complete different reasons. So it's just him. And three year mark he can't pass no matter what. He muses about it lazily flirting with Jack and sorting Archives, and than Jack is gone and for the first time in his life Ianto knows where. Somehow it only makes it worse and on the day of Jack return he flees away with John bloody Hart. He kills Grey before the bastard can do anything and continues to run around time and space with blond psychopath. He dies before three years mark is up.

He starts to see the pattern. He verifies it by getting a job in Starbucks and living the dullest life on Earth. When the 26 planet appears in the sky he just smiles and gets himself a pie. He lives few days past his 456 anniversary, slips on the floor and dies two hours later, bugged by question why before remembers all time travelling shit that happened in his first life. Three years, one month and five days. That all the time he gets on his hand.

He helps the Doctor with Racnoss. He is a companion again. He sets alarm for X day. It's the day Davros decides to destroy the universe. And Ianto got a very good hunch as for what is coming. When the doors of the TARDIS close before him and the hand starts to glow Ianto reaches for it because in the end it all doesn't matter. An hour later he is burning up and Doctor is too late. The last thing that he hears is Jack chocking on his tears whispering "I love you". It's sweet.

Bugged by last Jack words he runs away and decides to do something different. He saves Grey as seven years boy and for next three years raises thr child in a little human colony in the 73 century. It's quite and domestic and Ianto really tries not to die, but than a bloody moon falls on they planet. Really, how he could have foreseen that?

He is travelling with the Doctor again and this time there is Donna. Ianto likes Donna. And Donna likes him, even if he is a little bit young for her. Ianto for obvious reason doesn't tell her that he is twice older than its states in his passport. They marry on some obscure planetoid and Ianto manages to live long enough to see his wife who doesn't remember him anymore giving birth to his first born. He dies six months later on Mars in the year 2057.

He is 23 again, there is Pterodactyl and Jack. He punches Jack in a face and runs. It takes him two month to get to the end of the universe and it's miracle he doesn't die in the process. But that's not like he will get such a minor detail to stop him. He frees Master twenty years earlier and still it all somehow ends up the same. Valiant and Year that never was only this time he is trophy boy. He shots Master in the face and has dubious honour of being killed by Doctor's hand. He always suspected that Doctor was a good shot.

Next life he spends in Cardiff in polyamorous non-relationships with both Jack and Gwen and when he dies by Agent Johnson hands he dies almost happy.

Next one he remembers about Lisa, poor cyber-Lisa. Doesn't end up any better than the first time around. Jack is a good shot too. Not that there was any doubt.

Three years away from Torchwood, Doctor, aliens and saving the day business spent in a little Welsh village show him that it's nice, but it's not for him. Plus what answers he can probably find in the scenic Welsh countryside?

Next round he joins UNIT and if anything it turns out to be a very educational experience. Being killed by Dalek is not so much.

It's Jack again. And Torchwood. And The Team. He tries to make it perfect, but when Gwen and Tosh and Owen and Rhys are all bloody alive, 456 are gone - it doesn't change a thing.

He is old man now. Around seventy as far as he can tell. He lost track. He tries to help Lisa again just for the sake of it. Surprisingly asking for Jack, for Torchwood to help - works. They try everything they got a hold on and she still dies two years later, by which time Ianto is so exhausted that he feels just a relief. He goes through reminders of his life before warehouse - he can barely remember it - and finds _the watch_. He laughs. He keeps laughing. He never thought before that it's possible to earn double heart attack that way. But then maybe Time Lords can. He never paid all that much attention in medical classes anyway. Incidentally he finds out that double heart attack prevents regeneration. On the upside he surely dies happy, even if a little bit crazy.

He wakes up as human and snogs the life out of Jack. It looks like he nearly found his answer, isn't it? Turns out Time Lords do not know everything and could do even bloody less. So the second time he dies as a Time Lord he is not that happy, but Jack face for three years perpetually stuck in disbelief is good consolation prize.

Next five lives Ianto spends just for the sake of it trying to attract Doctors attention to pieces of time in his pocket. Boy needs to do something to pass the time, right? Doctor is so thick that it doesn't work even when Face of Boe is making eyes and winking and does everything barring drawing diagrams.

Next three he is contemplating whether the person who decided to loom a child from Master DNA is idiot or mad or mad and idiot. It was just bond to end in fuck up like this… "Crazy brainless bastard" wins in the end.

Ianto goes through all thirteen regeneration in two years, just for the sake of seeing new face in a mirror.

He lets Davros and his Daleks win.

Next three lives he spends being guilty, he doesn't leave Cardiff, sleeps only with Jack and dies each time awfully heroic death.

Ianto becomes the master in seduction of Captain Jack Harkness. He tells himself that it doesn't matter whether Jack loves him or not, but it still hurts to start from point zero every three years. Once he manages to make Jack propose right after Abaddon and not run away with the Doctor. Ianto is secretly proud.

He builds Rift manipulator and just for the sake of it goes after 456 left.

He jumps into the Time Lock.

He runs to other planets.

It's not so bad.

He just never can run far enough.

Rose Tyler leaves in parallel universe. Ianto doesn't know her all that well, he only sees her when Earth is being stolen by Davros. With two years and nine months under the belt he steps into parallel universe and tries to live. The stars are going out, Rose gets wedding ring on her hand, they search for the Davros … but even here his curse catches him and shows under Jack in dumb Cardiff warehouse in the year 2006.

Ianto makes a list and #1 is "in Jack hands", because it's always sweet, unless that is Jack who killed him. It is closely followed by "while opening fob watch, because the universe is bloody exploding in his head and it's like the best trip ever". The worst is when he dies trying to help someone, because it's reset bottom and no one actually is saved.

He starts to tell his story over and over again, but no one can help him and most of the time no one even believe.

He is nine hundred and eight. He saw everything.

He shots Lisa and kills himself only to wake up to Jack eternal grin.

It doesn't change a thing.

He can hardly remember why all this years ago he was jealous of what Jack was.

Immortality is curse. Quite a lovely one, but curse nonetheless.

Three years, one month, five days, eight hours, three minutes or less.

He messes with timelines. Some of the results make him proud, other surprises even after all this time, some scare the life out of him and some becomes his worst nightmares.

He travels with every Doctor, especially number six even if rainbow jacket at first scares him away for a couple of centuries. He knows all companions.

He serves in Torchwood across thousands and thousands years.

He enlists into the Time Agency and another dozens of its likes.

He builds empire or two. And it's quite a feat given his deadline.

He destroys civilization or two. That is less remarkable of achievement.

On one memorable occasion he asks Rassilion for help. Nothing good comes out of it. Ascension is rubbish and highly overrated anyway.

It never last past the day he died in that very first life of his. Relative timelines and everything.

He is so old. And that's only 97 660 986 seconds or less he got to live.

The same people cried above his dying body and pulled the trigger.

He loves them all. He hates them all.

He wants to die.

Or maybe just to move on.

He is in the TARDIS with Jack, Doctor, Martha and professor Yana who seemed to lose his watch back on Malcassairo. It's day X again and he leaves his accursed father to flirt over sonic screwdriver with his best enemy and Jack and Martha are busy exploring 51st century tradition. Ianto goes to console room and stares at the console with determination he was gathering for the last dozen of lives. It's still a very, very bad idea. But it never stopped him before. So –

He gets seconds to live.

Time is running out.

So -.

The TARDIS it is.

He looks into Her and She looks into Him.

That's the beginning.

A/N: I am working on my other fics - it's just life got in the way. And I won't be able to update for at least another two weeks, so plz be patient. I will update, I promise.


End file.
